{"id":35955,"date":"2021-10-29T16:08:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T20:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/?p=35955"},"modified":"2022-04-05T16:13:58","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T20:13:58","slug":"big-tech-problems-bitlocker-filevault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/big-tech-problems-bitlocker-filevault\/","title":{"rendered":"BIG TECH PROBLEMS? which is more secure? STRASBURG LOCATION BITLOCKER FILEVAULT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOPTECH\/THE ELDEST GEEK IS ADDING A NEW STRASBURG LOCATION!<\/strong> STILL \ud83d\ude42<\/strong>
I’m at 425 Stover if you need to bring something by in the meantime! Call me first!<\/p>

BIG TECH ISSUES.  AND AN INTERESTING QUESTION I WAS ASKED?
ASK THE ELDEST GEEK:  ‘Which is more secure – phone calls or email’?
<\/strong>A customer recently asked me this.  I thought for a few seconds and said NEITHER!As you have no doubt read – all emails are scanned by the NSA under the Patriot Act looking for terrorists. But – I’m willing
to bet you that all phone calls are ALSO scanned.  Even old style land line calls are at some point these days converted
to data packets and sent over the internet.  Those packets can be scanned and analyzed.
And if you are calling in range of an Alexa-enabled device – ALL your words are being recorded.  Some TikToker recently was
horrified to find Amazon had some 30,000 hours of her voice recorded (if I recall correctly).  No point getting upset – ITS HOW
ALEXA WORKS!  The device is ALWAYS listening because it can never know when you are ‘about’ to say Alexa!! It has to listen always
in case that’s your next word!  – So – my final answer – THEY ARE LISTENING IN ON EVERYTHING!<\/p>

BITLOCKER (pcs) and FILEVAULT (macs)  TURN THEM OFF!
We have seen no end of trouble with these.  What are they? do you even know if they are on? Bitlocker is Microsoft’s whole-drive
encryption.  Filevault is Apple’s equivalent.  Problem is (as customers have recently run into) – if you do most anything
to your system (including change the secure boot feature) you can trip bitlocker and it will want the 48-character key
next time you want to boot!  If you dont have it – you are losing ALL your data.  There are techniques to try and ‘crack’ it
but often these are fruitless.  The only real value is if your computer is stolen – the thief wont get your information. But if you
trip either of them and cant find the key YOU are the one locked out!  And microsoft and Apple cannot help!
And in the case of one poor customer – we GOT the recovery key from MIcrosoft and bitlocker REFUSED to unlock the drive anyway!
Microsoft’s response?  ‘OOOPS’.  Not very satisfying!

TOPTECH REMOTE SUPPORT PLANS! AVAILABLE NOW! (give us your feedback!!)<\/strong>
We’ve had several customers ask about us doing service contracts for them. And these days, we can
easily do that and with Remote Support the price is reasonable!
With our Remote Support technician we can visit you anytime you run the program on your system – or
we can install (with your permission) a remote service that allows US to take over the computer anytime you wish!
We are pricing this at only $20 per month, to cover 3 remote support hours (normally $180), and THREE computers!
If anything cannot be resolved remotely, then we can pick up the system, and you will get a 1\/2 hour discount off what work is needed back
at the shop!
There are scammers out there who charge considerably more than this – and RIP YOU OFF! This way we can check
your system from time to time. Call us with any questions you might have!<\/p>

SUPPORT TOPTECH! LOTS OF NEW ITEMS IN ADOPTION CORNER! GIFT CARDS! (?)
<\/strong>(hey I’m not too proud to beg.  And any donations would be most welcome – ‘prepay’ your next need?
If you want a gift card of ours services for a friend just ask! Happy to make up one!)<\/p>

WINDOWS 10 UPGRADE PROBLEMS<\/strong>
We have run into some PATHOLOGICAL systems where a windows 10 upgrade has really screwed the pooch!
I have one where it leaves you with a white cursor on black screen (no desktop) and another where
suddenly office could not run – and it turned out the upgrade had blown up AVG Tuneup! Some of the
performance enhancing programs actually insert themselves into the launching process (so they can
‘put to sleep’ a memory hog) and in this case it was preventing word from launching period when the
Tune UP program was damaged during the upgrade! MOST ODD and had to solve it myself. Had to
UNINSTALL, REINSTALL and UNINSTALL the Tune-UP program to get word to open!!<\/p>

WINDOWS 11 NO NO NO NO NO!<\/strong>
Have played with Win11 on a number of systems. NOT IMPRESSED. No Killer features that I felt were necessary!
In the macworld NO mac can install win11 by boot-camp!
And you must have at least an EIGHTH GEN Intel or newer to run. That means a couple year old system wont do!
BAD MICROSOFT BAD MICROSOFT!<\/p>

LIQUID SPILL REPAIRS<\/strong>
We are busy doing these for folks. if YOUR mac or pc is dead lets see if we can get it back on its
feet! Estimates no charge, 6 month warranty on repairs! Have been having GOOD luck with Macs AND PCs!<\/p>

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT<\/strong>
Need your website fixed up? Many don’t know that I do WEBSITES – and have done over 700 of them
anywhere from $100 to $100k!
Recently have been bringing in some good Irish talent (I went to college in Ireland) and they have
been helping do sites with me!
Need help?? Let me know! We also HOST sites on my servers for only $6-10 per month including emails
and minor updates!<\/p>

NEED HELP WITH GOLD\/SILVER? Or Antiques? We have a LOT of expertise \ud83d\ude42<\/strong>
I’ve been a precious metals dealer for years – started in the Antique Center. And we buy
gold\/silver – we pay more than pawn shops or jewelers!
And if you have something you THINK is valuable I can find out what pretty much anything is worth!<\/p>

ADOPTION CORNER:<\/strong>
here is the current adoption list – all are basically ebay prices but come with 6 month warranty
and we do trade-ins and move-data as well \ud83d\ude42
CDB PCS
<\/strong>
LENOVO 17in MOBILE WORKSTATION P73 i7 9th gen! 16gb.  256gbSSD + 2TB SSD! GREAT!!
HP Zbook 14u G6 1.6 Ghz i5 16Gb\/256gb.
Surface Pro 7 -2019 1.5 i5 8gb\/256gb SOLD
Surface Pro 5 LTE (cellular modem) i5 8gb\/256gb.
MSI GE63 Raider RGB 85F – 2018 2.2 i7 32gb\/1TB\/512SSD Nvidia Geforce RTX 2070
HP Omen 2.6ghz 12gb 1TB\/512SSD Geforce RTX
Sager 2.6 i7 16gb\/1TB\/500gbSSD GTX 1650
Dell XPS 2.3 i7 4gb\/128gbSSD Geforce GTX 960M
Lenovo Thinkpad P52 2.7 Xeon 40gb ram 500gb SSD Quadro P2000 GPU
Dell Latitude E5450 2.3hz i5 8gb\/500gb HDD Geforce 830M
MSI Titan MS-17A1 2.9 i7 16gb 1TBHD GTX 1080 GPU
Clevo Origin 4.2ghz i7 48gb ram 500gb SSD GTX 1060 GPU
Dell Inspiron 5759 2.5 i7 8gb\/1TB SSD Radeon R5 M335
HP Pavilion Wave 600-a014 Desktop 3.2 i3 8gb\/1TBHD
CDB MacBooks<\/strong><\/p>

>>>16″ Macbook Pro 2019 A2141 i7 2.6 6-core 16gb 500gb SSD.  SIXTEEN INCH1
15″ Macbook Pro 2018 A1707 6 core i7 2.2ghz 500gb SSD NICE
15\u201d MacBook Pro 2016 A1707 EMC 3072 2.6gb i7 16gb 500gb SSD Big Sur
15\u201d MacBook Pro 2018 \u2013 Needs new battery 2.6Ghz 6-Core Intel Core i7 16gb\/500gb SSD A1707 E3072
15″ Macbook Pro 2019 i7 1TB SSD!  NICE!!
13\u201d MacBook Pro Retina 2019 1.4 i5\/8gb\/128gb SSD Catalina A2159
13\u201d Macbook Pro 2017 A1708 EMC 3164\u2013 Crack in plastic at bottom of screen 2.3Ghz i5 8gb\/256gb SSD Mojave
13\u201d MacBook Air 2012 1.8Ghz Intel Core i5\/4gb 256gb SSD A1466
13\u201d MacBook Air 2013 1.3 i5 4gb\/128gb A1466 EMC 2632
13\u201d MacBook Air 2017 1.8 i5 8gb\/128gb\/A1466 EM 3178
13\u201d MacBook Air 2017 1.8Ghz Intel Core i5 8gb\/500gb
11\u201d MacBook Air 2015 1.6 i5 4gb\/128gb A1465 EMC 2924
13\u201d MacBook Air 2020 \u2013 3.2Ghz 8 Core M1 8GB 256gb SSD A2337 EMC 3598<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOPTECH\/THE ELDEST GEEK IS ADDING A NEW STRASBURG LOCATION! STILL \ud83d\ude42I’m at 425 Stover if you need to bring something by in the meantime! Call me first! BIG TECH ISSUES.  AND AN INTERESTING QUESTION I WAS ASKED?ASK THE ELDEST GEEK:  ‘Which is more secure – phone calls or email’?A customer recently asked me this.  I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35957,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35955\/revisions\/35957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theeldestgeek.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}