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Daily Installment of Coffee Joe, By Jim O'Connor

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As if I didn't have enough things to worry about, I find out that I am a replacement for the guy who was caught trying to do the same thing I am. This was no great comfort to me and Ahsu knew it. "Oh come on." She said. "You know damn well you don't like what's become of our free country! This is not the first time in our country's history the bad guys were in control and the good guys were portrayed as criminals." "So how the hell am I suppose to get this guy out of jail. Just walk in there and explain to the Combined Defense Force and GEICO that he really is a patriot, and would you please release him? One of us is crazy lady, and it's not me." She screamed at me and cried out "He's my husband! Damn you Joe. He's my husband." with tearful eyes she said, "I'm sorry, it's not your problem. Just do your job. He'll get out in five years if he's good and he does what he's told."

Ahsu was still crying. I handed her a tissue and I asked, "What's his name?" She was still wiping tears from her eyes and said "Bob. His name is Bob." I asked, "What did Bob tell the prosecutor he was using the schedule for?" She laughed and said, "to walk naked down the street. He told them he wanted to freely express himself and walking down the street without any clothes was a great tension release." "Shit, it's no wonder they found him guilty." I said. She told me that he was under pressure to provide them with a reason real fast! It's the only thing he could think of without blowing the whistle on everyone else.

I told Ahsu I had to get going. I had spent several hours talking to her already and by now I had a fairly good idea what was needed to resume the operation. I started thinking about GEICO and Verizon robots again! Getting someone out of jail was a bit more involved. Maybe we could jam them up with requests for "I need more data on shit, please." That would be too obvious.

On my way home, I couldn't help but to feel sorry for her. Her operation is all messed up and her husband in prison. But realistically speaking, what could I do? Even if I wanted to. Damn, Ahsu was always nice to me. Hell, I didn't even know she had a husband. I already had a funny feeling that somehow, I would wind up trying to help her, but I didn't know how yet.

Daily Announcements

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Happy Labor Day

Buffett: I Goofed on Geico Credit Card

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Buffett admits to money-losing "fiasco"

* Geico credit card attracted people with more credit risk

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett is considered expert in many things in the financial world.

Credit cards apparently are not among them.

The world's second-richest person often admits when he gets things wrong. He did so on Saturday in his annual letter to shareholders of his Omaha, Nebraska-based insurance and investment company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N).

Buffett had a brainstorm: create a credit card for customers of Geico Corp, the third-largest U.S. car insurer, which Berkshire has owned since 1996.



Though Geico underwriting profit fell 29 percent last year as loss claims increased, premiums earned grew 9 percent as it won new business in part through $800 million of advertising, many featuring a talking gecko.

Thanks to Geico chief Tony Nicely's leadership, Buffett said he is "more excited" about Geico now than he was when he first visited the company in 1951, as a 20-year-old student.

He's probably referring to the car insurance.

"For many years," Buffett wrote, "I had struggled to think of side products that we could offer our millions of loyal Geico customers. Unfortunately, I finally succeeded, coming up with a brilliant insight that we should market our own credit card. I reasoned that Geico policyholders were likely to be good credit risks and, assuming we offered an attractive card, would likely favor us with their business."

And they did -- but as at many traditional credit card lenders, it was the wrong type of business.

Buffett said Geico lost $6.3 million pretax on cards before he "finally woke up." It lost $44 million more when it sold a $98 million portfolio of card receivables, at 55 cents on the dollar.

"Your chairman closed the book on a very expensive business fiasco entirely of his own making," Buffett wrote.

"Geico's managers, it should be emphasized, were never enthusiastic about my idea," he went on. "They warned me that instead of getting the cream of Geico's customers we would get the -- well, let's call it the non-cream. I subtly indicated that I was older and wiser."

Buffett said he was half-right. "I was just older."



Buffett is 79. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel)

Overcome 5 Common Windows Problems

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as software and hardware improves, the old annoyances seem to remain. You encounter error messages. Windows slows down for no apparent reason. And files start opening in the wrong program.
Fortunately, you don't have to live with all of this. Here are five easy ways to overcome common Windows problems. Find links to free programs mentioned at www.komando.com/news.

Record error messages

We've all encountered incomprehensible error messages. A Web search should help you find the cause. That is, so long as you search for the exact text of the message.


TECH TIPS: Ask Kim


It's best to take a screen capture of the error message. You can use Vista or Windows 7's Snipping Tool, or use the print screen tool. Press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. Open a new file in a free program like IrfanView. Press Ctrl+V to paste the screen shot.

Failing that, use your camera to snap a picture — or just write the message down.

Recover deleted files

Who hasn't accidentally deleted an important file? Deleted files aren't actually removed from the hard drive. You may be able to recover them from the Recycle Bin. If you've emptied it, all is not lost. The data stays on your drive until it is overwritten. You can use a free program like Recuva to recover deleted files.

Of course, there are times when you want data to be unrecoverable. For example, you may be selling or donating an old computer. In that case, you need another free program that wipes the drive. Use Heidi Eraser to overwrite the data, erasing the drive to military specifications.

Uninstall old programs

There are plenty of great free programs online. It can be difficult to resist the lure, resulting in these programs quickly accumulating on your machine. They use up storage space and can slow your computer to a crawl. And they can conflict with other programs.

You should periodically remove programs that you don't need. Click Start, then Control Panel and select Program and Features (Add or Remove Programs in XP). Select a program to remove and click Uninstall/Change (Remove in XP). Follow the prompts to remove it from your machine. In some cases, programs leave traces behind. Use the free Revo Uninstaller to remove these files and folders.

Clean up the system tray

Programs can stay open and put an icon in the system tray. Over time, the system tray gets cluttered with icons. And, this will slow down your machine. These programs will continue to use your system's memory.

Right-click the system tray and select "Customize notification icons" (Properties in XP). Select "always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar." In XP, deselect "Hide inactive icons." Right-click an unneeded icons and opt to close the program. Note that programs often reappear in the system tray when you reboot. Another freebie called WhatInStart-up can help you control programs that load at start-up.



Be careful installing software

Many free software programs install browser toolbars and other programs. These may send your data to a third party. In many cases, they won't add anything to the Web browsing experience.

Programs may also change your file associations. This is a particular concern with media programs. Your files won't automatically open in your preferred program when you double-click them. Of course, you'll also find programs that install shortcuts on the desktop and system tray. Others plant toolbars in your Web browser.

Be sure to read the screens when installing software. I know, it's not fun. Uncheck any options for modifying files, installing add-on toolbars and other options that seem wrong. They probably are.

Kim Komando hosts the nation's largest talk radio show about computers and the Internet. To get the podcast or find the station nearest you, visit www.komando.com/listen. To subscribe to Kim's free e-mail newsletters, sign up at www.komando.com/newsletters. Contact her at C1Tech@gannett.com.

Recall: Toshiba Satellite T135, T135d and Satellite Pro T130 Notebooks

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By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Important information for Toshiba Satellite T135, T135D and Satellite Pro T130 owners - The US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada announced a recall following over 100 cases of the notebooks overheating and melting:

Certain Satellite T135, T135D and Satellite Pro T130 laptop computers have been manufactured with a potentially faulty DC-In harness. These computers will have model/part numbers beginning with PST3AU, PST3BU, or PST3LU. The defective harness may, in some circumstances, overheat to the point of melting the computer’s base at the location where the AC adaptor plugs into the unit. To date there have been no reports of serious injury, but the temperature is sufficient to pose a burn hazard if specific parts of the DC-In Jack or plug are touched when they are overheated.

Toshiba is releasing a BIOS revision which will prevent the computer from overheating in this manner. To protect you from injury and your computer from damage, Toshiba strongly recommends that you update your system BIOS to version to 2.70 for the Satellite T135, 1.90 for the Satellite T135D and 2.70 for the Satellite Pro T130.

Toshiba has a BIOS update that should identify troubled notebooks:

The BIOS can be downloaded by clicking on the following hot link: Satellite T135 v2.70 for the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D v1.90 for the Satellite T135D, Satellite Pro T130 v2.70 for the Satellite Pro T130, The appropriate BIOS revision is also available as an update provided through the Toshiba Service Station Application installed on you computer.

Should the BIOS determine that a harness failure is occurring, external power will immediately be disabled eliminating the possibility of the over heating. You will then need to contact the Toshiba call center to set up a warranty repair. If the harness failure is detected while the system is operating you will receive a system message indicating that the failure has occurred and that external power has been disabled. You may continue to use the system, without risk of overheating, using the remaining battery charge. You should immediately close all open files and applications to avoid any data loss. Once the data has been saved the system should be properly shutdown. It will not be possible to recharge the battery within the system until it has been repaired.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.



Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Virus Update from Symantec

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W32.Changeup!gen9 is a heuristic detection used to detect threats associated certain threat families.

Other resources
For more information, please see the following resource:
W32.Changeup

Trojan.Sasfis!gen2 is a heuristic detection used to detect threats associated with the Trojan.Sasfis family.



W32.Zeeker is a virus that infects .exe and .scr files. It also attempts to download files on to the compromised computer.



Trojan.FakeAV!gen39 is a heuristic detection that may include members of the Trojan.FakeAV family of threats.

For more information, please see the following resource:
Trojan.FakeAV

Packed.Cisabim!gen1 is a heuristic detection for files that may have been obfuscated or encrypted in order to conceal them from antivirus software. This heuristic detection is used to detect threats associated with multiple threat families.



W32.Wapomi!html

And Now, a Word from Our Sponsor

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World Time Alarm Clock 5.82 30 Aug 2010 by TechJim

When bears need an alarm clock to wake up in spring, they do not get a regular alarm clock at Wal-Mart, they use World Time Alarm Clock, from Household Software.

Our Daily Bit of the U. S. Constitution. Law Makers Ignore This Like Always

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Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

Appalling Picture Quality

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OK, so I switched to FIOS mainly for the Internet but I was anticipating that in exchange for giving up a large number of HD channels I would be getting picture quality superior to CV and/or Dish.

I don't know precisely what "Verizon area" I'm in but geographically I'm in Nassau County NY (North Shore) and last night I was watching ScienceHD (you know, Morgan Freeman and "Through the Wormhole") and poor Mr. Freeman looked like he had a skin disease. The more I looked the more confetti noise I saw in the picture and the skin disease was actually patchy, no detail areas of contrast on Morgan's face. Continuing, this lack of detail, noise, and general picture junkiness reared its ugly head in every scene and then on EVERY HD channel. SD was unwatchable.To check it wasn't my TV I switched to Dish and there was no such issue.

What is the best way to address this kind of thing (assuming it continues)? Call FIOS or is there some forum on line where I might get a better response? I know s**t happens but has anyone else noticed this kind of thing (which I can only guess is a lack of signal)?

Thanks for any commiseration.

How to Build a Better Business Blog

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By Christopher J. Bucholtz
CRM Buyer

At its most basic level, a good company blog can help you build a closer relationship with your customers. It doesn't have to be a huge investment of time or resources, though remember that low-cost is different than no-cost. It's also important to choose the right voice or voices to represent your company and keep in mind that corporate blogging is a lot different than hammering out dry, personality-free press releases.



About the easiest way for companies to dip their toes into the social media waters is the blog. There are few technical burdens to setting them up, the time needed to create posts can flex with the workloads of the assigned writers, and they can become a conduit for customer conversations through the comments section.

So every business is leaping eagerly into blogging. Right?

Well, not exactly. There are a couple of things holding businesses back. First, as an editor, I'm painfully aware of how terrified some people are of "writing." That's "writing" in quotes -- like writing an article (or a blog post). The same people are often adept at churning out e-mails, texts, Tweets and Facebook posts, but they have a block about writing longer pieces for one-to-many consumption. It's a little like a fear of speaking in public. Helping you past that would require me to have a totally different educational background, I'm afraid.

Other businesses get hung up on the strategic elements of blogging -- and that's something I have some ideas about.



Blog or Blogs?
First off, realize that starting, nurturing and maintaining a blog can be a low-resource effort, but it's not a no-resource effort. It'll take some time to write posts, and it'll take time to develop the audience. Budget accordingly.

Also, be aware of your audience -- or audiences. If you're a larger company, multiple blogs may be the best approach to reaching your important constituencies. For example, if you're a software company, you may have developer partners, existing users seeking to optimize their use of your product, and people in the decision-making process looking to get a feel for the culture and direction of your company. One blog is almost guaranteed to submerge the key messages for each group under material that's unimportant to them.

Instead, three blogs would be a good answer -- one penned by a key member of your development team, another by someone on the service team, and a third written by a key member of your management team.

The Human Touch


Next, be cognizant that in order to connect with the readers, a blog has to come from someone (meaning the writer) and not something (meaning your company). Readers are not visiting it to get a blast of unadulterated marketing; they're going to visit a personality who's entertaining, informative or, ideally, both. Relating to people is a lot easier than relating to a brand -- which makes it important to pick people within your organization that you want people to associate with your brand.



At the same time, don't stifle your writers by commanding them to behave like a brand -- that's unnatural, and it'll cause them to alter their way of communicating, which is ostensibly the reason you chose them in the first place. A lot of corporate blogs read as though someone's constantly telling the writer not to say anything stupid, with the resulting effect that the writer never really says much of anything. If you think someone's going to write something inappropriate, don't select him or her as a blogger. If you think someone's a good blogger, don't get in his way once he or she's started.



Once you have people writing, make sure you tell the world about it. The blog should get at least a little space on your home page; it's a quick, low-pressure way to get your customers to engage with you, but surprisingly few businesses ever think to include a link to their blogs in any prominent manner on their home pages.

Audience development doesn't end there -- Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups are three fairly simple channels to make people aware of your blog and to foster conversations about it.

Never forget the comments section of your blog. Check it daily to strain out blog spam (blam?) and, more crucially, to respond to legitimate comments. Doing so spurs conversations, and conversations in the comments areas of blogs can add a second level of energy to your efforts -- and, depending on the nature of the blog, could signal new prospects or upsell opportunities.

Keeping Track
Finally, as you should with everything in your business, measure your results. Most blogging software includes an analytics component that allows you to see raw traffic numbers, sources of incoming links, links within the blog that were clicked on, and the percentage of new readers of the blog. Keeping track of this is a great way to get a view of the impact your blog's having beyond the walls of your website and can reveal nuggets of data you can act on quickly.

Perhaps the best part of establishing and nurturing a blog, especially for smaller businesses, is that it can be introduced gradually and that your strategy and approach can evolve over time. You don't necessarily need all the pieces in place at the start, but you'll quickly realize the roles those pieces play in getting business results from the blog.

At the very least, a blog is great for conveying the human side of your company to the public. Even if you never get into using the blog to look for prospects, engage in product cocreation, supplement your service department or broadcast your technology roadmap, your blog can help you build a closer relationship with your customers -- and isn't that the basic idea of CRM?

Texas Conducting Antitrust Review of Google

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By Nancy Gohring

IDG News Service - Google on Friday said that the Texas Attorney General's Office is conducting an antitrust review of the search giant, following a similar investigation launched in Europe earlier this year.



The attorney general's office has asked Google for information regarding Foundem, SourceTool/TradeComet and myTriggers, each of which have complained in the past that Google pushed them down its search rankings or reduced their appeal to advertisers.

As it did during the initiation of the European Commission antitrust investigation, Google on Friday highlighted connections between the complainants and Microsoft. Foundem, Google notes, is backed by the Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplace, an organization funded in part by Microsoft. MyTriggers and SourceTool/TradeComment are represented by Microsoft antitrust attorneys, Google said.

Microsoft has responded in the past that antitrust complaints usually do come from competitors.

In its blog post, Google said it recognizes that as it grows, it will face more questions about how its business works. "Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it's unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking," Don Harrison, deputy general counsel at Google, wrote in the post.

Google is cooperating with the Texas Attorney General's Office.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

Microsoft Bpos Down for 90 Minutes; Second Outage in a Month

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By Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft’s hosted suite of enterprise applications — the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) went down for 90 minutes on September 3 for a number of customers in North America.

This is the second BPOS outage reported in the past month. The previous one hit on August 23, and like today’s, was attributed to an unspecified networking issue.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and co-founder of InterKnowlogy Tim Huckaby alerted me to today’s outage via a Facebook status update.

“I made it to 40!…and i cannot tell you how frustrating this is…My InterKnowlogy Exchange Account on Microsoft BPOS has been down 40+ hours. This calamity combined with the last one in July brings my “Uptime” ptcg in the 5 months my Email has been hosted in Microsoft Hosted Services down to 98.0747%.”

BPOS is a Microsoft-hosted bundle of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Communications Online and Live Meeting. There are dedicated, shared (multi-tenant) and government versions of the suite. Microsoft is working to update the BPOS bundle with the latest versions of these various point products, something that will happen over the next few months.



Microsoft touts service level agreement (SLA) guarantees of 99.9 percent for its Online services (of which BPOS is a key component). If Microsoft falls short of that mark, a spokesperson recently told me, the company “give(s) customers money back.” The spokesperson also told me that Microsoft considers “any service issue as downtime,” but said (as of June 2010) that “Microsoft Online Services have averaged 99.9% or better uptime since the start of this year.”



Microsoft confirmed today’s outage when I asked.

“This morning, beginning at roughly 10 AM eastern, some customers in North America began experiencing intermittent access to our data center. We identified a network issue as the source, and the issue was resolved roughly 90 minutes later. During the duration of the issue, customers may have experienced intermittent access to services,” a different spokesperson told me. “Customers received regular updates on the issue via our normal communication channels. We apologize for any inconvenience the issue may have caused our customers,” he added.

The spokesperson also said that Huckaby’s 40-hour-plus reported downtime was specific to his account and escalated prior to my inquiry.

Update: Huckaby confirmed his account was fixed as of September 3. “To Microsoft’s defense, it’s not like mine or anyone else’s email bounced. That will never happen,” said Huckaby, who also is a member of the Microsoft Regional Director program. “They are completely fault tolerant there…which you would expect / demand. When I did finally get connectivity to my mailbox again, I got a deluge of 500+ emails. ”

Yes, all online services experience periodic outages. But Microsoft and its competitors are pitching services like BPOS as ready for prime-time in the enterprise.

Any other BPOS users out there hit by today’s glitch?

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.



Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Current Activity Reported by the US-CERT

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Apple Releases iTunes 10

Apple has released iTunes 10 to address multiple vulnerabilities affecting the WebKit package. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial-of-service condition.

US-CERT encourages users and administrators to review Apple article HT4328 and apply any necessary updates to help mitigate the risks.