Warp Whine

Hope Monday finds all well and productive. The beach house started Monday this past Friday evening. Two projects are wearing me out. One is trying to remove SmitFraud from a badly infected computer. After a chat with the owner today it will probably be formatted, OS reinstalled, etc. Then there's all the updates and configuration that will make it possible to rejoin its network. About a 4 hour process, but do-able. Hiring a hit team of Soldiers of Fortune to eliminate the creeps that write this garbage has my vote. Here's a warning about SmitFraud; If you see your desktop is changed, usually red in color but not always, and you cannot open anything shut down immediately. Seriously, reach over and pull the plug from the wall if necessary. Your chances of data surviving is far better than if you start trying to open stuff.

Now the beach house quandary of the day; what is with QuickBooks? Using simple tools I can hack into a .qbw or .qbb file and see information about customers, billing, etc. But trying to find the password is a major undertaking. Brute Force is now working to retrieve any passwords, but this make take a while. Even days. That is, if it works. Yep, QuickBooks cares nothing about data security. They certainly do care about you contacting them with a large amount of moola to retrieve that password. Isn't this backwards? Or at the very least sideways? A software company should respect its customers and be helpful. These people are downright hateful. No money up front? No help. They suck. If I find a way to beat this without contacting them you can bet your sweet bippie it'll be posted here in detail. Wish me luck. Thanks MJR, Ash and Forest for the help!

10. "Do you have a sledgehammer or a brick handy?"
09. "...that's right, not even McGyver could fix it."
08. "So -- what are you wearing?"
07. "Duuuuuude! Bummer!"
06. "Press 1 for Support.
Press 2 if you're with 60 Minutes.
Press 3 if you're with the FTC."
05. "We can fix this, but you're gonna need a butter knife,
a roll of duct tape, and a car battery."
04. "In layman's terms, we call that the Hindenburg Effect."
03. "Hold on a second... Mom! Timmy's hitting me!"
02. "Okay, turn to page 523 in your copy of Dianetics.
01. "Please hold for Mr. Gates' attorney."
~10 Things You Don't Want to Hear from Tech Support