Right off the bat, I am announcing today that I will not seek, nor accept my party’s nomination, for the office of Governor of California. With that off my chest, let’s begin.

If you’re an Earthlink user like me, whether you’re on a Mac or PC, beware! I recently received an email stating that my Earthlink account was suspended, due to my automatic credit card debit being refused. It instructed me to reply to the email with my “updated” personal and credit card information enclosed. I found this odd, as a few days earlier I had received via email the normal monthly invoice from Earthlink informing me of my account charges and the payment thereof. Plus, the email came from Earthlink.com. The REAL Earthlink is Earthlink.net. Then it dawned on me – if my account was suspended, how was I able to get the email through Earthlink? Sure enough, it’s a scam, apparently from the same criminals who run a phony eBay credit card number collection page. I got an email shortly thereafter from the real Earthlink saying it was indeed an illegal scam and was being investigated.

This episode brings up a good point. I have no problem using my credit card to purchase items from respectable retail outlets on the web through their secure servers, but I NEVER send credit card information through an email message. I think it’s a bit like sending cash through the mail.

Speaking of scams, at Microsoft’s recent annual meeting with financial analysts, Bill Gates said that the company’s error reporting service indicated that 5% of Windows-based computers now crash more than twice each day. With Microsoft’s claimed 600 million Windows users, that’s roughly 30 million frustrated Windows users dealing with three or more crashes on their beige boxes every day – that’s more “crashers” than there are Mac users in the world! I haven’t had to restart my Mac, running OS X, except when installing software that requires a restart, for, I don’t know, a year, maybe? Sure, I shut it down at night and when I’m away for a few hours. So, that’s going to be our new name for Wintel computer users – you’re now “crashers”. All this from a company that spends a billion more on R&D than Apple will gross this year. What do they spend all that money on?

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski