I recently received a very disturbing email from a client. Okay so maybe I was just a bit miffed by being incriminated that I had done something to a clients computer... Without their knowledge.
First of all I want to defend myself by stating the simple fact that I do try and treat each of my clients computers as if they were my own. That being said, when I hear of some serious problems on the horizon, such as a new virus that is creating havoc amongst email and the rest of the internet, or the fact that there are a bunch of new patches available, I will want to try and get as many of my clients notified of this as possible. This is where RSS and Blogging comes to action. With this device, I should be able to, in theory, if all of my existing clients use RSS and subscribe to my blog, then they will all be notified at the same time, whenever I say something here.
Now, to be incriminate as to why I might be "doing something" to your computer is crazy. First of all, I am usually fairly busy trying to keep up with client emails asking a question or two, or simply wanting me to check out a small or potential problem. I don't usually have to go connecting to client computers just for the heck of it.
In this case, it was nothing more then not understanding what all the lights do on the face of the computer case. The red flashing light in this case was of course, the hard drive. Since it was probably early in the morning (around 1am I believe when I received the email), that there was probably disk defragment or virus scanning or possibly a windows update taking place.. Or it might have only been the screen saver causing the hard drive to load a new file. In any case, this is certainly nothing to panic about as this is what the computer should be doing, especially if you are not using it. Of course it could be cause for alarm if you go and move your mouse and the screen pops on only to find that there are no programs running. This certainly could be a sign that there is spyware running and could be causing a lot of network activity. If you aren't sure, then simply email me along with your ip address and I'll check it out. But please, believe me when I say "I have better things to do then go snooping around any random client's computer". This being said, I must say there have only ever been two times in the past 6 years that I have ever connected to a clients computer without their knowledge initially however once I did complete the update (which was obviously a critical update otherwise I would have just simply told them to do it in an email), whereas I always email letting my clients know that I had connected and completed some sort of work..
..Oh, did I forget to mention that I never charged for this service? Not that I don't charge, but in the case of a quick connection and update.. Of course not.. it is just part of my service.. so if you haven't started to 'take advantage of me'.. what are you waiting for?
But if you are going to take advantage of me.. Please don't shoot the technician just because you see some flashing light. I would be glad to inform you of anything you are uncertain about.. I do also give computer lessons if you feel it is time, you know where to find me....
