Be wary of unexpected e-mail attachments

Dave Farquhar security

Just an observation: I’ve received two unexpected e-mail attachments from people I don’t know in the past hour. I figured the first one was an honest mistake–for some reason I get e-mail intended for other people from time to time–but when I got a second one and it, too, was little more than a smiley and an attachment, I started to think something strange is going on.

Your antivirus software should catch anything floating around, but if it’s too new, you can still get bitten. It’s never a good idea to open unexpected attachments. Bad things can happen.

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Nonstandard configuration on a vintage PC? Maybe it was gray market

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nonstandard configuration on a vintage PC? Maybe it was gray market

I saw an interesting question about the configuration of mid-1980s (pre-PS/2) IBM PCs on a vintage computer forum this week. The question regarded how various machines came from the factory, especially when some collectors have PCs they bought from the original owners, including an invoice, showing the machine didn’t match known factory configurations. This made me think of the gray market.

The gray market referred to the practice of discounters getting genuine IBM PCs and reselling them, sometimes modified. The most famous gray marketer was Michael Dell–the “Dell” in Dell Computer Corporation–who got his start by upgrading bare-bones IBM PCs and selling them out of his dorm room and later, out of a condo. Eventually he decided he wanted a steadier supply, and started manufacturing, becoming the company we know today.

But Dell was far from the only one. Read more

How to disassemble a Lionel 2026 or 2037 locomotive

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , ,

Years ago, I tried to take apart my dad’s Lionel 2026 to fix it, and I gave up trying to figure it out. Today I scored a similar 2037 locomotive at an estate sale in fixer-upper condition. To my knowledge, no book has ever gone into detail on how to disassemble this model, so I’ll explain it here. This time I was able to drop the motor out to get at what I needed to repair it.

There are also five additional Lionel postwar-era locomotives, the 637, 2016, 2029, and 2036, that come apart the same way.

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Find material for a rebuttal assignment

Dave Farquhar Writing ,

A coworker who went back to school and is currently taking a composition class asked me a good question today. His assignment is to find an article he disagrees with and write a rebuttal of 350-700 words. But he didn’t really know where to start, and asked me for advice on where to find material for a rebuttal assignment.

I never have problems finding something out there that I disagree with, so I guess he asked the right guy. I can just go to Google News and click on anything and I’ll probably disagree with some of it. I guess journalism school taught me right. If it’s not that easy for you, I have a trick. It’s nearly foolproof.
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If Microsoft goes through with the threat to ribbon-ize Explorer

Dave Farquhar Software

If Microsoft goes through with its threat to foist the atrocious ribbon on the flawed but useful and usable Explorer, I have insurance.

You can install Far Manager, a text-mode Win32/Win64 clone of the classic Norton Commander. It’s fast, it’s functional, it’s easy to use, and it looks just like you remember the old DOS classic that you haven’t used since the day you upgraded from DOS to something else, whether that was OS/2 or Windows 95. But it supports long filenames and it’s a true 32- or 64-bit application.

If you prefer a GUI application, there’s Free Commander, which resembles the Windows GUI version of Norton Commander.

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