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…For even more viral and scamming activity than usual.

For me personally, it started when I received a fax via email around Thanksgiving. It was from “me”. I did not send myself a fax. I hadn’t sent anyone else a fax around that time.

A year ago we used this space to discuss a specific piece of malware known as “CryptoLocker”. While some of the major players exploiting CryptoLocker have been shut down, variants have appeared and are creating new headaches for thousands of PC users – and this is serious enough, it deserves some attention again.

This year saw the end of Windows XP (and Office 2003) support. It saw really slow adoption of Windows 8 in businesses of all sizes. Windows 10 was announced (and what happened to Windows 9?). Next year will see the end of Microsoft support for Windows Server 2003…and Windows 10 will become available for purchase.

It seems like we’ve been looking at a lot of old computer gear lately. There’s many reasons why people hold onto their computer systems longer than they really should… The current machine is running fine (not most of the time but sometimes), cost of the new gear and upgrading, the hardware upgrade also requiring upgrades to other software, and the hassle and learning curve on what’s often going to be a new operating system and/or applications are just a few.

How about $55,492? Last month, an Ohio guy by the name of Zack Brown posted a “Kickstarter” campaign. If you’ve not heard about Kickstarter, it’s a kind of on-line crowd-funding platform that works mostly through social media.

Someone, like Zack, puts up a Kickstarter campaign.

…when, as we’ve already seen around the country, the weather demonstrates its power, all too often with awful and tragic results.

But it doesn’t take a hurricane or an F5 tornado for the weather to create problems… even the seasonal thunderstorm can create havoc for electronics – and that reminds us of the power and room environment issues we see every spring and through the summer.

Recently, a friend forwarded me one of those Internet “Top 10 Things That <fill in the blank>” emails that I almost always delete without reading. This one caught my attention though, as it was titled something like “Things That May Disappear in Our Lifetime”.

OK, got me.

One common business term thrown around with relish is overhead. In business this is usually known as ongoing expenses incurred in operating a business. This operating expense is something all companies have, and in tight economic situations it’s often one of the first costs managers try to decrease.