Posts by Stifler

Facebook deleted my post and made me confirm pics of my kids weren't sexually explicit

Fire fazebook

Why use the book of faces? It's a big privacy spy scam. Use e-mail, Google docs, your own website, etc.

Windows 10 Start menu replacements shifting like hot cakes

Tame the Win10 Start Tiles

Pin your favorite apps to the Start (after getting rid of the defaults).

Right click on an icon to use the option to make them small size, drag them into groups, move the pointer to the right of the groups until 2 small horizontal lines show up, click it and a box will appear. Type the name for your App groups! Some that I use are: Internet, Utilities, Graphics, Business and Personal Finances.

Revealed: The AMAZING technology behind Apple's $1299 Retina MacBooks – a lot of glue

Settle down. Apple doesn't manufacture anything: Foxconn mostly.

Bitcoin ransomware racket makes bank

Don't pay up

I know of a firm that paid a .6 Bitcoin ransom to unlock their important files in early 2014. The hacker did not respond. Fortunately, some files were recovered from a backup.

What data recovery software would you suggest?

Acronis 2014: major fail

I have found that Acronis 2014 was a bad choice for me: had many problems with recovery from a backup--so I had to uninstall it. Also, the Try & Decide feature corrupted the hard drive.

Older versions of Acronis were excellent--2014 don't recommend.

For my complete review and others--read the 1 star reviews on Amazon: Acronis True Image 2014 (DVD).

Watching Olympics at work? How to avoid a £1k telly-tax fine

no telly license needed in USA, etc

Yeah, I remember that license BS when I lived in the UK. Don't miss all those UK taxes.

Seagate matches and raises WD disk warranty cuts

Warranty - not worth much anyways

I repair PC's and a common problem is hard drive failure. The warranty for a hard drive is basically worthless and vendor hype.

That's because the replacement drive has always been refurbished and not new. That statement is on the drive's label but may be hard to spot. In my experience, the refurbished drive may not last long as we would expect. I have seen a rebuilt drive fail in a few months or weeks.

One use of warranty replacement is for non-critical use such as clone copy of a backup. This is risky though if both drives happen to fail.

Also, a rebuilt HD is useful during computer repair for testing with a temporary operating system installation. I also use them to have a go with trial software and different types of operating systems. The use of a cloned refurb to preserve the existing installation in case of major malfunction has saved me grief.

Forget about using a warranty replacement refurb drive for permanent, regular use. You might as well put a sign on your back and say kick me please--I am stupid. You are asking for trouble in my experience.