Somebody from India or wherever claiming to be from Microsoft took me through a trip on my old computer, claiming that my computer is 4 years and 1 day old and that I need to buy a new firewall from them. It was a long process whereby they claimed to prove things to me.

I think some idiots hacked into somewhere, got all my info and they were not from Microsoft. Kept claiming they were proving things to me.

This is what makes the calls so hard to resist. They sound so damn convincing. Not only do they have your phone number and address, in some cases they actually have detailed information regards the age of your computer and warranty status.

I knew that at the end either the computer problem would just be fixed or they would ask for money. They wanted $$$.

He [said] that my computer would white out in 24 hours if we did not buy the new firewall.

The computer in question had just been checked by me 2 weeks ago and I know the firewall is fine. The computer is on it’s last legs and already replaced by a newer machine, but the firewall works fine. Not only that, it has both a hardware and a software firewall working on it. The threats about the firewall are bunk. But very scarey bunk.

An important note here: if your firewall stops working your computer will not “white out”. This is not possible. “White out” is a nonsense term used by a scammer to terrify the unsuspecting. Even if the company you bought your computer from is in the business of selling firewalls, you are under no obligation to purchase your firewall from them. You can pick and choose the software you run.

Would Microsoft call and try to sell an update over the telephone? The man told me my computer number and that only Microsoft and I know the number blah blah blah…

Blah, blah, blah indeed. The answer is a categorical NO. Microsoft does not cold call people to sell them anything. Nor will any reputable anti-virus protection company. The calls are scams, nothing more. The more you argue with the person on the other end of the line, the more threatening they become. I gather from this customer, the call disintegrated into a shouting match.

Here’s advice on how to handle this type of call – hang up. Don’t engage the person, don’t listen to their sales pitch, don’t take their tales of imminent catastrophe seriously. They are interested in your credit card number, not your computer security. It isn’t rude to hang up on someone trying to steal your money.

Take today’s support call. I was helping a customer with a spam problem. She has the opposite problem most of us have. She gets next to no spam, but most of her important emails are regularly caught up in the filter and this has begun to cause a problem. I contacted Bell Internet to see if there was a way of shutting off the filter. Here is the online conversation:

**** (SCI): Hi ****, welcome to Bell Internet Services, my name is ***** SCI. I see that you have questions regarding your e-mail, how may I assist you with this?

You:          I need to shut off the Bell spam feature but there is no way of doing this… can you help

**** (SCI): I will certainly help you with that.

You:          Thankyou

**** (SCI): Please login into your bell mail.’

You:          I’m there

**** (SCI): Can you see options at the right cornet

You:          I’ve logged into options

**** (SCI): Click options—> more options –> click safe and blocked sender list

You:          I’m there

**** (SCI):Now select the level to exclusive,

You:          Okay…

**** (SCI): Is there anything else that I could help you with Bell Internet services?

You:          That is under filters and reporting not safe/blocked. It will also put the spam block into overdrive and HOLD EVERYTHING. This is not what I asked for. I want to shut it off

**** (SCI): If you select it , The spam will be decreased.

You:          READ WHAT I ASKED. The problem is I get VERY LITTLE SPAM and want to shut the FILTER OFF because it is catching NON SPAM. You have given me instructions on how to ramp up the filter so EVERYTHING is caught.

**** (SCI): There is no option to shut off , However I will escalate your issue to concern department to fix it.

Now, was it so difficult to tell me in the first minute that the feature cannot be shutoff? Instead, he walked me through steps (incorrect ones at that) to increase the spam filter. If I had been someone who was unaware of what the tech support person was telling me to do, I would have ended up with an even worse situation.

So, don’t be afraid to question any instructions you’ve been given. If it doesn’t sound right, ask them again and have tech support explain why they want you to do something. A good tech support person will tell you. They may sigh to themselves, but they will explain things clearly. If they can’t tell you why, then they are simply reading from a list of solutions and will not be able to help when everything goes truly pear shaped.

Think I’m exaggerating? About a year ago, one customer was instructed to find the main breaker for her house and shut the electricity off to her entire home. Tech support assured her this would correct her e-mail problem. He was sure it had something to do with her electricity. She hung up and called me. The problem was simple, she could receive mail but couldn’t send it which means her SMTP mail needed to be assigned a new port – 2 minutes, problem solved and no trip to the basement to shut the power off. I ponder this piece of advice and for the life of me can’t figure out what was going through the techie’s mind to tell her to shut all hydro off to her house. How would this solve a port issue?

When dealing with tech support, be polite, be concise, try to explain the problem clearly and don’t be afraid to ask the techie for more information or an explanation. If in doubt, ask for another support person.

Voila, a free ride on someone else’s dollar.

I run into this type of security risk quite often. There are 3 competing cafes on this corner alone, each one offers Internet access. Two of them do not offer an open connection, you have to take out a subscription. I’m sure many customers log onto Netgear for free, rather than pay for the connection. I am sure some customers connect to Netgear and don’t even realise it.

What’s the problem with that? Let me count the problems:

1. Netgear is the name of the router. This tells me the router is working on all the default (factory) settings. Easy to log in and reconfigure the router and lock the user out. What a major pain that can be. Think of the time wasted trying to find out why you can’t connect to the Internet. Internet providers will not help you troubleshoot your router problems so you will be on your own to figure it out.
2. This also tells me the Netgear owner has zero security on their connection. This is a major problem. And don’t give me the line about “I have nothing valuable on my computer”. This answer drives me up the wall! Are your photo’s valuable to you? How about your name, email address, do you have your banking information on your computer? Do you have something like Quicken? Great way to loose your identity. Your photo’s are valuable to you! Do you really want to risk having some punk with a attitude playing around with them? How about your email address? I’m sure you will be quite pissed if they suddenly disappear.
3. Just what are these anonymous users doing with your connection? I have a customer, who at the time he called me in was in his 70′s. He thought mastering cut, copy and paste were major achievements. He received a letter from a lawyer telling him to “Stop his hacking endeavours immediately” or he would be faced with court action. Turned out someone was using his connection, here in Toronto to hack into a company in Calgary. Who was this person? We never knew, but my customer was being held accountable because the ip address was his. Maybe the unknown person using your wireless connection is downloading movies. Do you think the lawyers for the Movie industry will care you left your connection wide open? Your connection, your responsibility, your lawsuit.
4. Just think of the number of people who are having a free ride on Netgear’s dollar. Potentially 90 unwanted users taking up Netgear’s bandwidth in a month. Wonder if Netgear is having speed problems with their connection. Bet they are really sluggish around lunch time and after work! I calculated this by 1 customer per cafe x 3 cafes x 30 days.
5. Many Internet providers have a bandwidth transfer limit. This means, the more you cruise and download, the more you may have to pay. Most providers provide their customers with plenty of bandwidth space. But bandwidth is calculated for single home use – not sharing your connection with 90 other people. I wonder if Netgear has been hit with extra fees for extreme bandwidth usage.
6. I become quite steamed when I hear people talking so blithely about using someone else’s connection without permission. Stop being so damned cheap and get your own.

So, still think you don’t need to secure your wireless connection?

Who, what, where and when?

I wish more bloggers remembered these tried and true methods of keeping a coherent thought on paper. Many new bloggers commit the cardinal sin of forgetting what they are writing about. This problem runs, not only through individual posts, but through the entire bog itself. It is hard to stay focused. If you remember the basic rules from school, you will succeed.

Today we are going to look at the Who of blogging.

How many times have you wandered across a blog only to find out it hasn’t been updated in months. It is hard work maintaining a blog, with a bit of pre-planning, you can simplify the job and have fun.

Before you even write your first entry, sit down and make a few decisions. These decisions will affect how the blog looks and how often you are able to update it.

Decision one: Who are you writing for? Are you writing for yourself? Or a specific audience? Forget the gloomy souls who advice you to forget about blogging if it’s personal because no one will read it. This is not true. You may never get 100′s of hits a day, but then, do you care?

Strange things happen on the Internet. You may find kindred spirits who log in to read your random thoughts, if they are presented properly. Look at the classic Julie/Julia 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen from just a few years ago. Julie Powell started the blog to detail her efforts to cook 1 recipe from the Julia Child’s cookbook everyday. It was amusing, fun to read and at times very personal. Despite all this, it reached a very wide audience and was published in hard cover form. Chances are you and I will never reach such heady heights of blogging fame. That shouldn’t stop you. It sure doesn’t stop me.

So .. decide upon your audience. Maybe its just you and your mother. Maybe its you and 20 other people who share a love of collecting small dragon figures or the problems of your particular job. Blogging is about getting your thoughts down on ‘paper’.

Remember who your audience is and design your site around them. Why do I say this? I log onto quite a few blogs and find I cannot read a thing on the page… the page is too busy, its too hard to find the posts, the colour contrast is buggered, the background screams out at me. If I land on a site that includes the above I say bye, bye to the site and move on. I don’t want to end up with a headache from trying to figure out your page. Clean and easy to read with a simple navigation menu will always win you more readers. I go for the traditional white background and black font because I have a hard time reading anything other than that.

This doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself to this type of format. This works for me. The basic look works best for this type of content. If I were writing reports on the latest punk concerts in my area then this format would well … suck. It would not suit the audience it is trying attract. A livelier format does not preclude the above rule of keeping the format clean and easy to read. There is never an excuse for a blog that is so bogged down in whirling, spinning crap and so full of ads the reader cannot find your posts. Readers come to SEE YOUR POSTS, never forget this.

A couple of rules to remember – not everyone has 20/20 vision. A lot of we myopic cats out there have a terrible time with busy backgrounds. Mute the background. Your background should never be the primary focus of the site. Wavy, swirly backgrounds just make me motion sick. Tone them down because they are competing with your posts.

Keep in mind approx 7% of the population is actually colour blind. Certain colour combinations make it impossible for people who are colour blind to read your site. I have a friend who is colour blind and he finds it very frustrating.

Blinking anything should be punishable by ostracisms. Never use the justly hated blink feature on any part of your site. Not only will it piss off the bulk of your audience, using it makes you look like a silly amateur who should have their keyboard taken away. I cannot explain how much I loath blink or any of the spiny twirly special affects I see. Some pages actually trigger off, in me, a violent headache if I stay for any length of time. Cut it, concentrate on what you are posting.

Navigation is another feature you should pay attention to. Make it easy to find info on your page. Don’t hide the navigation links.

Clutter – well this all depends upon your audience. As long as it’s easy to navigate and easy to read and your audience is of like mind, go ahead and put as many chicklets as you want on your blog. Link away. Just remember, don’t hide your posts. I have purposely left this particular blog clean because the cluttered look would detract from it. Over at the the other blog I maintain, Catpaw – diary of an angry cat, it is much busier with connections to blog catalogues etc. But then, the audience is different and likely more tolerant.

Next instalment in this series will discuss the What of blogging? What are you going to write about? And how to stay on topic.