END OF DAYS. The Mt Vernon Antique Center was demolished this week. DEVASTATED.
It is with a very heavy heart that I have to report that Sam demolished the Mt Vernon Antique Center this week. I had promises from him that we would get a chance to attempt recovery – I had a customer ready to run a small excavator with a grappling arm to lift the roof off my second floor shop (which was still standing after all this time). I got a chance a week ago sunday to go in and actually climbed a ladder got onto it and saw what was needed. Beams had to be lifted. asphalt chunks from the roof had to be removed. TUESDAY I was promised would be the day we could actually get parts of the roof off. And – demolition would begin in a week or two.
Instead, tuesday saw the arrival of a BIG crane and they started knocking things down. I protested. I threatened to report him to the EPA. Nothing helped. Dump trucks arrived thursday and its now virtually all gone.
I’m devastated. Personally, I lost $400,000 because of the fire. We got a small fraction of it back from my homeowners insurance with Travelers. But – my mineral collection (valued at $170000 by travelers) even though probably 80% was destroyed by the fire/water/roof, I fully expected to get 15-20% of it back. I had a gorgeous meteorite, worth $3000, that survived traveling through space and the earth’s atmosphere – THAT would surely have survived the Antique Center fire.
Some of my customers computers – though destroyed by the fire – I fully expected some of the hard drives to be intact and have recoverable data. Some of my old anthque things might have survived – certainly I had a good quantity of sterling and gold onhand. I had a $3000 solid gold bracelet. Well – even if they had been reduced to lumps of silver and gold – well they would still have been lumps of silver and gold. Not worthless.
All entreaties fell on deaf ears. I was lied to. And told ‘Craig – it was for your own good. you needed to move on. It was all gone’.
It is with a very heavy heart that I have to report that Sam demolished the Mt Vernon Antique Center this week. I had promises from him that we would get a chance to attempt recovery – I had a customer ready to run a small excavator with a grappling arm to lift the roof off my second floor shop (which was still standing after all this time). I got a chance a week ago sunday to go in and actually climbed a ladder got onto it and saw what was needed. Beams had to be lifted. asphalt chunks from the roof had to be removed. TUESDAY I was promised would be the day we could actually get parts of the roof off. And – demolition would begin in a week or two.
Instead, tuesday saw the arrival of a BIG crane and they started knocking things down. I protested. I threatened to report him to the EPA. Nothing helped. Dump trucks arrived thursday and its now virtually all gone.
I’m devastated. Personally, I lost $400,000 because of the fire. We got a small fraction of it back from my homeowners insurance with Travelers. But – my mineral collection (valued at $170000 by travelers) even though probably 80% was destroyed by the fire/water/roof, I fully expected to get 15-20% of it back. I had a gorgeous meteorite, worth $3000, that survived traveling through space and the earth’s atmosphere – THAT would surely have survived the Antique Center fire.
Some of my customers computers – though destroyed by the fire – I fully expected some of the hard drives to be intact and have recoverable data. Some of my old anthque things might have survived – certainly I had a good quantity of sterling and gold onhand. I had a $3000 solid gold bracelet. Well – even if they had been reduced to lumps of silver and gold – well they would still have been lumps of silver and gold. Not worthless.
All entreaties fell on deaf ears. I was lied to. And told ‘Craig – it was for your own good. you needed to move on. It was all gone’.
Nonsense. But – whatever survived the fire – and might even have survived the big excavator – it is now in a landfill somewhere, and THAT I cannot recover them from.
I’m VERY sorry to those of you who had hopes of getting information back. There was not a great chance honest – but there certainty was SOME chance. That is now gone.
I dont believe I have any recourse. But I’m devastated.
I’m VERY sorry to those of you who had hopes of getting information back. There was not a great chance honest – but there certainty was SOME chance. That is now gone.
I dont believe I have any recourse. But I’m devastated.
PCMatic. How good is it? how does it work? is it as good as claimed?
In a word. Its BS. How – what are its claims? that they use a ‘white list’ and only permit ‘good’ software to run. And it blocks ALL viruses automatically. Whats the truth?
Well – there are many problems. PC Matic uses a database that ‘recognizes’ software by certain identifying information, a ‘snapshot’ of the program in question. Its sort of like how viruses are recognized – by collecting identifying characteristics. If the unknown code has all the noted characteristics, its recognized as a virus (by most software) or as a ‘good’ program by PCMatic.
However, consider. Programs change all the time. Updates are frequent. and the software vendors will hardly notify PCMatic of all new versions of their programs. So – the problem is you will get frequent false positives. Some new version of some critial program will then NOT be recognized – and will be incorrectly blocked.
Your system may fail to work thus. After updates, either system wide or just to an app. Something that used to work suddenly wont.
Well – there are many problems. PC Matic uses a database that ‘recognizes’ software by certain identifying information, a ‘snapshot’ of the program in question. Its sort of like how viruses are recognized – by collecting identifying characteristics. If the unknown code has all the noted characteristics, its recognized as a virus (by most software) or as a ‘good’ program by PCMatic.
However, consider. Programs change all the time. Updates are frequent. and the software vendors will hardly notify PCMatic of all new versions of their programs. So – the problem is you will get frequent false positives. Some new version of some critial program will then NOT be recognized – and will be incorrectly blocked.
Your system may fail to work thus. After updates, either system wide or just to an app. Something that used to work suddenly wont.
AND THERE IS NO FIXING IT!
You have to wait (I’m not kidding) for PCMatic to update THEIR database as to the new version of whatever program/app/software . And meanwhile, you are dead in the water with NO idea why things aren’t working.
So – IMHO – the cure is worse than the disease. If you are virus infested – you can always on PCs restore your system to an earlier point before the virus infected you.
You have to wait (I’m not kidding) for PCMatic to update THEIR database as to the new version of whatever program/app/software . And meanwhile, you are dead in the water with NO idea why things aren’t working.
So – IMHO – the cure is worse than the disease. If you are virus infested – you can always on PCs restore your system to an earlier point before the virus infected you.
But with PC Matic, even if have been making restore points (windows does this for you under a number of circumstances) restoring to an earlier point may infact get you a working system. but you will immediately get the update (particularly if its a windows component that got updated) again – and you will be back in the same spot. Programs update themselves these days often automatically – so you will quickly get back to the point PCMatic blocks it. and you are back in the queue waiting for them to correct the false positive.
So – not worth it. Viruses are pretty easy to deal with (and 90% is just spyware that wants to show you ads anyway). Something that thinks a windows component is now a virus after some update – THATS a real problem!
Apple iPhone News?
An odd piece of news – that Apple is discontinuing the iPhone X and cancelling the SE2 phone. Supposedly disappointing sales is the reason.
Apple Butterfly Keyboard replacement program
Apple officially has acknowledged that the frequent keyboard problems on the new touchbar macbooks – even the tiniest bit of something can get into it and completely disable the keyboard! – is a design flaw and they will replace them (with a new keyboard that has a membrane between the keys and the electronics – to keep bits of something out!).
As usual they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the admission that the design has a big flaw. But they have now acknowledged it. If you have one of these touchbars, 13 or 15 inch, take advantage of the replacement!
Apple 2011 Macbooks – GPU replacement problems! INHOUSE Chip Replament for GPU and liquid spills on MOST systems!!
As you may well be aware the 2011 Macbooks (15 and 17in) had a design problem (Apple hired the wrong Chinese firm to assemble them) and was till last year doing a free GPU replacement to cover no-boot, graphical corruption or rebooting issues. Apple no longer will do anything for these, but WE WILL!
We can do inhouse GPU chip replacement with a new cpu and bring these laptops back to life! And they are STILL good units (I’m typing one of them as we speak!)
We have the equipment and expertise to do virtually ANY chip / component level replacement problems on both Macbooks and any other computer. You dont have to pay twice or three times what Apple wants to replace the whole board – we can change the little bitty chip that is what actually has failed!
SIX MONTH WARRANTY ON OUR REPAIRS!
We can do inhouse GPU chip replacement with a new cpu and bring these laptops back to life! And they are STILL good units (I’m typing one of them as we speak!)
We have the equipment and expertise to do virtually ANY chip / component level replacement problems on both Macbooks and any other computer. You dont have to pay twice or three times what Apple wants to replace the whole board – we can change the little bitty chip that is what actually has failed!
SIX MONTH WARRANTY ON OUR REPAIRS!
ADOPTION CORNER
We have as usual some nice systems onhand for adoption!
a nice Macbook Retina 13in (last pre-touchbar) should be working soon!
Asus GOOD 17in Gamer laptops. 7th generation i7 cpus!
Several decent hp and dell lighter newer laptops.
a nice Macbook Retina 13in (last pre-touchbar) should be working soon!
Asus GOOD 17in Gamer laptops. 7th generation i7 cpus!
Several decent hp and dell lighter newer laptops.