BDS Computer Supply

02/02/2022

I just signed on with an IT firm here in Sioux Falls so my hours will be changing with BDS Computer. I will only be available locally on wekends and evenings by appointment only, sorry for any inconvenience.

01/31/2022

A recent malware threat for android..
Just passing along the info. If you fell victim to this be careful with banking on your android phone. Tips to check and remove if you have it are in the link. I understand if you dont trust links, you can google "2 factor authentication android malware" and see the link in the search results. Your best defense is READ what you are allowing the app to have access to before you allow it. If it doesnt make sense, its probably not needed.

The Vultur trojan steals bank credentials but asks for permissions to do far more damage down the line.

01/30/2022

How I fix stuff working in IT.
Get it here: https://toptees.store/how-i-fix-stuff-working-in-it?s=hanes-5250&c=Black&p=FRONT&pr=FREESHIP49USD

01/30/2022

My point about all these posts is that technology HAS made a difference in our lives whether we see it or not (or choose not to embrace it). You and I go through our daily lives just taking for granted the way the world and those around us function. We get up, flip on the light, jump in the bathroom with running water, flushable toilet and hot shower. The coffee is on a timer so it's ready before we even get to the kitchen. We read or watch the latest news within minutes of real time events actually happening. We pre-start our cars so they are warm or cool before we get in and drive to work (only because self-driving cars are not mainstream yet) where we get “clocked in” to start the day, probably on a computer that has a time clock program. Our days are tracked with spreadsheets for optimum production and cost-effective use of company resources. Most conversations are about the sports games we watched on the weekend or some reality tv show (that was taped many months ago and rebroadcast for our drama fix later). Sometimes the conversations are just text messages or memes on social media, like this post. These are things that were not available 50 or 100 years ago that we just take as normal today. Even if you’re a part of the younger generation, take a look and see what advancements have been made due to technology changes in YOUR lifetime. The compact disc came out in 1982, Ive been married almost that long....thats almost 40 years ago. Younger people who have never known about cassette tapes are now seeing even that CD technology replaced by the mp3 and streaming services used today. Those advancements though, would not have been possible had it not been for the changes made previously. Technology is ever-changing so enjoy the things you have today because someone is already thinking about a better way to improve on the technology you take for granted today. Ask someone older about technology they remember as being state of the art. You’ll be surprised at what you might learn and maybe appreciate what you don’t have to do as the world turns today. Take a minute and try to think about something you do that has not advanced because of technology....feel free to post a response when you come up with one. I’d be happy to hear about it.

01/29/2022

Communication

I touched on email and text in the last paragraph. Back in the stone age, you had to throw a rock to get someone's attention. Advancements when we learned to ride horses and write, we could use a courier and get a message to someone in a couple months, maybe even hear back before the season changed. I still remember saving my Bazooka gum wrappers, stamping and addressing an envelope to some po box somewhere then mailing them in to get the free secret decoder ring in six to eight weeks for a small handling charge. I think I remember stamps being 10 cents then. You gotta love capitalism. That tactic still gets people today with the tv ads. Get a second set for an additional handling fee of $19.95, which of course is nonrefundable once the item arrives and is way different then the ad claimed. PT Barnum was a genius with his comment” a sucker born every minute”. This is how we all learn though. I did it, you did it or will do it and your kids will do it. It’s a rite of passage, I think. But now, we don’t even need infomercials. We can get that instant gratification of getting swindled through e-mail and text messages that ask for our “personal information”. Let’s be real though, it’s not personal anymore. It’s just a matter of how many different websites you need to go to, to find what you need, some of them on the dark web even. You can send identical copies of a letter to thousands if not millions of people in an instant if you know their “address” or user name on a social media site. You don’t even have to have a phone line connected to the device you are communicating with; it just goes through the air wirelessly, on some radio wave. For communication I think that it's nice we can talk with family and distant relatives but we also get overloaded with the kind of communication that we really don’t need. We call it spam but spam is relative because some people want that newsletter and others don’t want it. I guess nobody really wants the millions of dollars that some prince has waiting for us to collect though, that one should just be rejected by the server as soon as it is sent. Maybe someday.

01/28/2022

Post #3 Why technology has made things better:
Documents
This is a double edge sword you could say. I remember reading books in grade school that were quite a few years outdated but that was the latest printed copy so we took it as gospel because there was nothing else to say any different, yet. I think about that and looking up research in an encyclopedia at the library as I am typing this in a word processor program on my laptop and referencing things via internet instantly. I don’t even have to spell check, open a thesaurus or even have correct grammar, the program does it for me (as I spell grammar with an e, lol). I can be an expert writer with very little skill or thought as to how the words are typed. Anyone remember whiteout? Backspace keys are awesome. I was not part of the older days with typesetting for the printed page but man that had to suck finding the correct letters and spaces and different fonts and sizes for headers and paragraphs then rolling on the ink and pressing to paper only to find out you spelled something wrong or the boss decided that he didn’t want that story printed today. I can’t imagine the pressure and stress being a newspaper printer back then. That said, the double edge sword is that it is so easy today to just print out a page, that we tend to do that. “Print me a copy”. I thought the digital age was supposed to prevent increased use of paper? I think we have more paper and ink used today in one year than Ben Franklin and his brother used to print the New England Courant from 1721 to 1726. I looked that up on the internet, but I should check my outdated encyclopedia to see if it has that information as well. The point is that somethings that are made easier for us may lead to, for lack of a better term, gluttony because it is so readily available and we don’t see the real cost of production before we do something. We just do it because we can. Think about that next time you hit the print button. If you had to position the page, set the type, ink the roller, manually turn the wheels that printed the page, and had to do that for each one that you printed, would you do it? Maybe just email or text next time. I think this one leans to better with tech as long as we use caution on the potential for waste.

01/25/2022

Post #2
Have computers made the world a better place or just different?
When I started writing this, I didn’t realize how much information was in my head on this subject. I might even have a book worth but nah, I’m too lazy and unorganized to write a book, so I’ll just make a bunch of posts and later look back to say hmm, I should have written a book.
You have to go back before computers actually made an impact in society. I know most of you are not that old. Unfortunately, I am. So, from my perspective, a computer enthusiast, I would say yes. Technology has improved our lives. I’m sure I could find others that disagree though, and wish computers were never invented. Lets look at some things that I can relate to before and after technology changed. Im going to pick a subject and make a couple posts so stick around if your interested...it might be good

Exercise

Here’s a topic that most techies love..not. Even when I was younger, I would rather do anything except exercise. Going out and throwing the ball around was not really exercise it was just playing with your friends. I mean real exercise was running around the track, joining a soccer, baseball or football team in school. Even the things like chores, mowing the grass or raking leaves, that wasn’t exercise it was work. Really though, anything physical like that could be considered exercise. Before I get shunned by real exercise fanatics like sports professionals, I want to say I have a healthy respect for your determination and expertise in your field. That’s probably the healthiest part of my life actually, the rest of me is out of shape and old. From a tech perspective though exercise before tech was throwing around a medicine ball or chopping a tree with an axe. Mowing the grass with a manual rotating blade, or even before that a scythe or sickle. Today I was able to wake up, go in the next room and jump on the treadmill for thirty minutes (remember I’m old and out of shape, that’s my exercise workout). I can set speeds and incline and newer ones even have a screen that simulates awesome locations including computer enhanced terrain that changes the incline as you progress. As a kid I had to don the sweats and head to the park to run a few miles (yeah, I had a short time when I was energetic). So just in terms of incentive I would say technology has improved how we exercise. Do you think I’m going to run down the street in my track suit? Heck no I might break a hip. I’ll head 20 feet away to my treadmill and read a book or watch tv for a while as I try to remember why this is good for me.