Turns out one of our local papers, The Star Tribune got hacked via classified ad - from Latvia (with love?)! Read this FBI press release, including:
According to the indictment, the defendants created a phony advertising agency and claimed that they represented a hotel chain that wanted to purchase online advertising space on the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s news website, startribune.com. The defendants provided an electronic version of the advertisement for the hotel chain to the Star Tribune, and technical staff at startribune.com tested the advertising and found it to operate normally.
According to court documents, after the advertisement began running on the website, the defendants changed the computer code in the ad so that the computers of visitors to the startribune.com were infected with a malicious software program that launched scareware on their systems. The scareware caused users’ computers to “freeze up” and then generate a series of pop-up warnings in an attempt to trick users into purchasing purported “antivirus” software, which was in fact fake.
I’m going to bookmark this one so I can refer people back to it when they ask, “how could I have gotten infected with this? I didn't open any e-mail or go on any weird sites!” Malware is everywhere . . . eternal vigilance!
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Monday, November 01, 2010
The Laser Printer Game
Most people are aware of the game that printer manufacturers play - that they basically give away their printers in the hope of snagging a consumables (ink/ toner, etc.) customer "annuity" for years to come.
The following is a response to a customer whose 1-year-old Dell color laser printer (which was super-cheap) is getting more expensive to supply and maintain.
Customer: (Dell order update attached, stating the fuser part that they need to get their printer back running, is no longer available and the order will be cancelled.) Hey Pete, just an FYI on the printer parts issue. See email below - I guess we’re stuck with a useless printer. I’ll contact “spare parts” but looks like we may need to start looking for a new printer – and not a Dell.
Me: (I found another source for the part, and provided a sub-$200 quote for the fuser assembly.)
Customer: Thanks for contacting them about the part. The printer itself was less than the cost of that part. It’s an okay printer, not all that great, beside the toner is expensive, the drum was expensive, and now this part…I think we may need to look at a new printer. I think we can get a new one for less if not the same as the cost of that part. HP’s are reliable and ink/toner is usually reasonably priced. Do you have any suggestions?
Me: Color laser is still very expensive, pretty much no matter how you slice it – between 10 and 15 cents per page for consumables, versus 2 to 4 cents per page for B/W. We have a moderately-priced color Ricoh in our office and the four color toner drums for it cost around $500.
In fact, you’ll almost always find that printer mfr’s will sell their printers at-cost or even at a loss, then give you a small-capacity (~2,000 pages) “starter toner.” A few months into your use (or sooner, if you print a lot), you’ll find you need to pony up for the ~$500 set of toner carts . . . and that’s when the mfr’s get their profit out of you. They make little (or lose) on the printer, but then they have an annuity stream for a long time on the consumables.
Sometimes the math seems to work out such that you can just buy a new color laser printer rather than buying their toners again. But the mfr’s know that, so that’s why they only give you a small-capacity set of “starter toner.” Take this into account when deciding on what to do here. If you can spend $200 on a new fuser now and get to use the $500 worth of toner that’s sitting in that printer, it could last you another year or so. Or, you could plunk down a few hundred bucks for a new cheap-o color laser, burn through the starter toner in a few months, and spend another $500 for a full supply of toner.
Anyway, I agree that HP is good stuff, though they do clearly play some of the same games with initial pricing, and actually their ongoing toner costs are not that great. For instance, you can buy an HP CP2025X for about $500 plus shipping, which is a pretty decent deal. But it’s only got two 250-sheet trays, not a big 500-sheeter (not sure why they did that), and the toner is still 4 (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) x $120ea . . . about $500 for consumables! And those are only good for 3,500 pages. So, $500 divided by 3,500 impressions = $.14 per page.
Or, we’ve had very good luck with Ricoh. The C311N, for instance, goes for about $700 and the toner cartridges are about $150ea, but they yield 6,000 pages per set. So, $600 divided by 6,000 = $.10 per page.
Or, if you have a copier company, you may be able to get a better deal on a printer like this through them. They might be able to make a better promise than Dell with respect to the repair and maintenance parts as well. I know, lots to absorb . . . let me know what you think.
The customer ordered the replacement part, we installed it and they are working again. They've been hooked by the cheap Dell printer - for now.
The following is a response to a customer whose 1-year-old Dell color laser printer (which was super-cheap) is getting more expensive to supply and maintain.
Customer: (Dell order update attached, stating the fuser part that they need to get their printer back running, is no longer available and the order will be cancelled.) Hey Pete, just an FYI on the printer parts issue. See email below - I guess we’re stuck with a useless printer. I’ll contact “spare parts” but looks like we may need to start looking for a new printer – and not a Dell.
Me: (I found another source for the part, and provided a sub-$200 quote for the fuser assembly.)
Customer: Thanks for contacting them about the part. The printer itself was less than the cost of that part. It’s an okay printer, not all that great, beside the toner is expensive, the drum was expensive, and now this part…I think we may need to look at a new printer. I think we can get a new one for less if not the same as the cost of that part. HP’s are reliable and ink/toner is usually reasonably priced. Do you have any suggestions?
Me: Color laser is still very expensive, pretty much no matter how you slice it – between 10 and 15 cents per page for consumables, versus 2 to 4 cents per page for B/W. We have a moderately-priced color Ricoh in our office and the four color toner drums for it cost around $500.
In fact, you’ll almost always find that printer mfr’s will sell their printers at-cost or even at a loss, then give you a small-capacity (~2,000 pages) “starter toner.” A few months into your use (or sooner, if you print a lot), you’ll find you need to pony up for the ~$500 set of toner carts . . . and that’s when the mfr’s get their profit out of you. They make little (or lose) on the printer, but then they have an annuity stream for a long time on the consumables.
Sometimes the math seems to work out such that you can just buy a new color laser printer rather than buying their toners again. But the mfr’s know that, so that’s why they only give you a small-capacity set of “starter toner.” Take this into account when deciding on what to do here. If you can spend $200 on a new fuser now and get to use the $500 worth of toner that’s sitting in that printer, it could last you another year or so. Or, you could plunk down a few hundred bucks for a new cheap-o color laser, burn through the starter toner in a few months, and spend another $500 for a full supply of toner.
Anyway, I agree that HP is good stuff, though they do clearly play some of the same games with initial pricing, and actually their ongoing toner costs are not that great. For instance, you can buy an HP CP2025X for about $500 plus shipping, which is a pretty decent deal. But it’s only got two 250-sheet trays, not a big 500-sheeter (not sure why they did that), and the toner is still 4 (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) x $120ea . . . about $500 for consumables! And those are only good for 3,500 pages. So, $500 divided by 3,500 impressions = $.14 per page.
Or, we’ve had very good luck with Ricoh. The C311N, for instance, goes for about $700 and the toner cartridges are about $150ea, but they yield 6,000 pages per set. So, $600 divided by 6,000 = $.10 per page.
Or, if you have a copier company, you may be able to get a better deal on a printer like this through them. They might be able to make a better promise than Dell with respect to the repair and maintenance parts as well. I know, lots to absorb . . . let me know what you think.
The customer ordered the replacement part, we installed it and they are working again. They've been hooked by the cheap Dell printer - for now.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Office 2010 Comes Into Focus
Office 2010 has officially launched, at least for businesses. Microsoft says consumers will be waiting about another month. Important features of Office 2010 include:
- There's a free online version. Or at least there will be. It has nothing to do with whether you own and pay for a full version of Office 2010 - it'll be free to anyone. Very similar to Google Apps and Zoho, Office Web Apps will allow users to use Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote online, in a web browser. The apps are scaled-down for use online, perhaps a little too scaled-down for some early reviewers. Hopefully some of these issues will be addressed prior to launch. I do very much like Office Web Apps' integration with its free online storage service Skydrive, which I've blogged about previously.
- Ribbons - the tabbed function buttons introduced with Office 2007 - have been enhanced. For apps that already had ribbons in 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), they are now more customizable in that you can create your own new ribbons and populate them with your own set of functions. And apps where ribbons were not deployed in 2007 (Publisher, and especially Outlook) have been given the full enhanced ribbon functionality.
- Editing objects embedded in documents has been enhanced greatly. If you embed a photo, you can modify the coloration, background and other properties of the photo (a great time-saver for those who have done the modify-the-image-and-re-save-it-then-reattach-in-the-document hokey pokey). There's also the ability to modify embedded videos.
- "Backstage View." I'm not sure who was asking for this or what was wrong with the old way, but Office 2010 basically re-packages the "File" menu into a whole-screen dialog called Backstage View, which controls printing and the standard File menu properties and functions. More info and screen shots of each app's Backstage View here.
All in all, Office 2010 is a nice little evolution enhancing Office 2007 and making it easier to use. While it's not compelling enough to recommend that anyone should put down hard-earned money to go from 2007 to 2010, it is one more step in the right direction for the suite.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
90% of Windows 7 flaws fixed by removing admin rights
Here's a quick, interesting article from Ars Technica (based on a study by BeyondTrust)regarding Windows 7 vulnerabilities and administrative rights in Windows.
It's always a delicate balancing act for us, between giving users enough rights to get their jobs done (and not having to continually ask us to install things for them), and giving every user local admin rights on their computer, allowing them to infect themselves with all manner of viruses, malware and other "unapproved applications" (unsafe screen savers, p2p file sharing apps, etc.).
I'm not surprised that admin rights are a root cause of many security vulnerabilities, but I never would have guessed 90%.
It's always a delicate balancing act for us, between giving users enough rights to get their jobs done (and not having to continually ask us to install things for them), and giving every user local admin rights on their computer, allowing them to infect themselves with all manner of viruses, malware and other "unapproved applications" (unsafe screen savers, p2p file sharing apps, etc.).
I'm not surprised that admin rights are a root cause of many security vulnerabilities, but I never would have guessed 90%.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Office 2007 buyers get free upgrade to Office 2010
Starting last Friday (3/5/10), anyone who buys Office 2007 will get a free upgrade to Office 2010 when it’s released. Details: http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/
It looks like they are changing around the contents of the suites a little bit, so they’re giving some fairly generous Office 2007-to-2010 version upgrades in the process. They’re basically giving Office Basic 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Home and Business 2010 (adds OneNote and PowerPoint), and they’re giving Office Small Biz 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Pro 2010 (adds MS Access).
Here is the table describing which 2010 version canbe upgraded from which 2010 license:
OFFICE 2007 PRODUCT ----- OFFICE 2010 UPGRADE PRODUCT
Office Ultimate 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Professional 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Small Business 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Standard 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010
Office Home and Student 2007 ----- Office Home and Student 2010
Office Basic 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010
And, if anyone's curious to see how Office 2010 looks, you can become part of the Beta program for it, for free. Remember this program is in Beta (testing!), so please don't download this program for use in a production environment.
It looks like they are changing around the contents of the suites a little bit, so they’re giving some fairly generous Office 2007-to-2010 version upgrades in the process. They’re basically giving Office Basic 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Home and Business 2010 (adds OneNote and PowerPoint), and they’re giving Office Small Biz 2007 buyers a free upgrade to Office Pro 2010 (adds MS Access).
Here is the table describing which 2010 version canbe upgraded from which 2010 license:
OFFICE 2007 PRODUCT ----- OFFICE 2010 UPGRADE PRODUCT
Office Ultimate 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Professional 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Small Business 2007 ----- Office Professional 2010
Office Standard 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010
Office Home and Student 2007 ----- Office Home and Student 2010
Office Basic 2007 ----- Office Home and Business 2010
And, if anyone's curious to see how Office 2010 looks, you can become part of the Beta program for it, for free. Remember this program is in Beta (testing!), so please don't download this program for use in a production environment.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
FTC recourse against spammers
Through my many weird little connections, I get on a lot of these computer hardware inventory lists, where people are trying to sell me some grey-market components at a discount. We don't buy stuff like this (especially not from sources like this), so I usually request removal and they eventually comply.
I had a guy recently that just kept sending and sending and sending - daily. And his unsubscribe mechanism - which I tried no less than four times - never removed me.
What to do? I could have just blocked him at our firewall, or flagged him as junk mail, or folderized him in some semi-junk folder in my e-mail program . . . but not this time. I felt the frequency of his e-mails warranted more effort.
So, I started looking into the CAN-SPAM Act. It's an act signed in 2003, which sets rules about what can be e-mailed, requires unsubscribe capability and other things. Clearly, this guy was in violation of that, but can a lowly Average Joe like me use this law in any way?
Yes, in two ways. One is that I could send a complaint to the FTC, via their ComplaintAssist system. Hard to say where these complaints go, and surely there's only a small portion that are actually investigated, but it's something.
The other way is the threat of action. In my fifth attempt to unsubscribe-by-e-mail, I let the spammer know (and copied the admin contact for his company's domain) that I would be filing a complaint with the FTC regarding his practices if I received one more of his solicitations.
The previous four e-mails were never responded to; this fifth one threatening action got a polite and apologetic personal response from him, promising to remove me from the list. I never did place that complaint, but the threat of someone willing to follow the process and use a legal system did the trick!
I had a guy recently that just kept sending and sending and sending - daily. And his unsubscribe mechanism - which I tried no less than four times - never removed me.
What to do? I could have just blocked him at our firewall, or flagged him as junk mail, or folderized him in some semi-junk folder in my e-mail program . . . but not this time. I felt the frequency of his e-mails warranted more effort.
So, I started looking into the CAN-SPAM Act. It's an act signed in 2003, which sets rules about what can be e-mailed, requires unsubscribe capability and other things. Clearly, this guy was in violation of that, but can a lowly Average Joe like me use this law in any way?
Yes, in two ways. One is that I could send a complaint to the FTC, via their ComplaintAssist system. Hard to say where these complaints go, and surely there's only a small portion that are actually investigated, but it's something.
The other way is the threat of action. In my fifth attempt to unsubscribe-by-e-mail, I let the spammer know (and copied the admin contact for his company's domain) that I would be filing a complaint with the FTC regarding his practices if I received one more of his solicitations.
The previous four e-mails were never responded to; this fifth one threatening action got a polite and apologetic personal response from him, promising to remove me from the list. I never did place that complaint, but the threat of someone willing to follow the process and use a legal system did the trick!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
iPhone becomes less business-friendly - for now?
For the past 5-or-so years, Macs have been increasingly made to be more business-friendly. That is to say, more Microsoft-friendly, since Microsoft Windows Server software is such a dominant force in the user-facing server space (e-mail, remote access, file sharing, etc.).
The iPhone has been a challenge for us to get to work nicely with either of Microsoft's e-mail server juggernauts, Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007. From synchronization issues to certificate complications, there just have not been a lot of full Exchange-on-iPhone integration projects that I would call "challenge free."
After the first generation of iPhone basically offered no support for synchronizing with Exchange, I welcomed the news that the second generation of iPhones would gain Exchange synch capability as a feature. It still wasn't perfect, but movement in the right direction nonetheless.
Today, I'm simply speechless at the news that iPhone OS 3.1 has gone the other way - it is less Exchange-friendly than before. Specifically, it no longer supports encryption that the default Exchange 2007 setup - and most corporate IT departments - require of mobile devices.
So, let me get this straight. Apple releases a "bug fix" 3.0-to-3.1 update to roll out an AppStore and ringtones enhancement, and breaks the corporate functionality of the software? Interesting priorities . . . some things don't change, I guess.
The iPhone has been a challenge for us to get to work nicely with either of Microsoft's e-mail server juggernauts, Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007. From synchronization issues to certificate complications, there just have not been a lot of full Exchange-on-iPhone integration projects that I would call "challenge free."
After the first generation of iPhone basically offered no support for synchronizing with Exchange, I welcomed the news that the second generation of iPhones would gain Exchange synch capability as a feature. It still wasn't perfect, but movement in the right direction nonetheless.
Today, I'm simply speechless at the news that iPhone OS 3.1 has gone the other way - it is less Exchange-friendly than before. Specifically, it no longer supports encryption that the default Exchange 2007 setup - and most corporate IT departments - require of mobile devices.
So, let me get this straight. Apple releases a "bug fix" 3.0-to-3.1 update to roll out an AppStore and ringtones enhancement, and breaks the corporate functionality of the software? Interesting priorities . . . some things don't change, I guess.
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