Unlocked iPhone 4S? Kind of

The new iPhone 4S has been announced, and it is a world phone. It’s also available in an unlocked version, which normally means it can be used on any compatible carrier.

But not so fast. Many US customers prefer Verizon for its U.S. network and Verizon phones typically don’t work overseas. Yes, there are some “world phones,” but they are limited to the usages of Verizon’s contracts. Many of us had hoped that the new iPhone would allow us to sidestep those restrictions.

Alas, that appears to not be the case.
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Hurricane Damage

After Hurricane Katrina, I put together a list of do’s and don’ts for my friends in New Orleans.

It all holds true today.

If your computer got flooded by Hurricane Irene, that document lists some of the things you should and should not do. Step one is to never, ever turn the thing on. You can make a minor problem a major one doing that.

Look here for more info.

Intuit drops ball

Add Quickbooks for Mac to the list of programs that won’t run on the forthcoming version of Lion, the latest operating system for Apple computers,

Intuit announced this week that no version of Quickbooks for Mac is compatible with OS X (10.8).

The only Intuit product known to be completely compatible is the wimpy Quicken Essentials for Mac.
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Password No-no

Do you use the same email address and password as the login information on multiple sites? If so, you are in for trouble.

I have received a dozen or so calls in the past month from clients who thought they had a virus on their machines. Friends of theirs had been getting spam that looked to be sent by the client.

I got another one this morning.

In no case was it a virus, nor had the clients been hacked. What happened was
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The End Is Here! (Part II)

Have you checked Windows Update lately?

The default settings will install critical updates, but it’s a good idea to actually run Windows Update periodically. Also, see if it’s updating all Microsoft products. It will tell you if it’s not.

Support for many older programs will run out next week. As announced a year ago, Office XP support will end on July 12. Ditto for computers running Vista with only Service Pack 1 installed. Read More...