S11E32 – Locked-In Vendors, Clicking Drives and Free Office Tools
Chapters
Show Notes
Episode Summary
Mike opened with news: Arizona Computer Guru is taking residential clients again, for the first time in about seven years. He then told the story of a nonprofit client that felt trapped by its website company. The donation page was stuck in test mode, the WordPress site was running around 40 plugins (several of them doing the same job), and the client had no access to fix any of it herself. His point was that no vendor should hold your website, domain or data hostage.
With co-host Howard, Mike covered a newly discovered ad-based attack that infects targeted devices without a click, Microsoft’s record month of updates, and the scam texts riding on the Arizona courts breach. The second half was calls: why Google Play Services storage keeps growing and shrinking, free alternatives to paid office and PDF software, and what to do when an external drive full of irreplaceable photos starts clicking.
Topics Covered
When a vendor holds your site hostage
Mike described a managed WordPress site where the donation form was in test mode, roughly 40 plugins slowed pages to about three and a half seconds, and the owner could not log in to make her own changes. He said some web companies keep your domain or hosting in their name so you have no easy way out. His advice: make sure you control your own domain, hosting and data, and if you feel trapped by a vendor, call for help planning a way out.
Ads that infect without a click
Researchers found a malicious ad campaign, tied to an Israeli company, that installs spyware on targeted devices when an ad simply loads, with no click needed. Howard noted it depends on whether you are on the target list. Mike said ad networks should be held more accountable for what they deliver, and repeated his standing advice to run a good ad blocker. The show’s Helpful Links page lists some.
A record Patch Tuesday
Howard noted Microsoft just released a record 1,411 fixes in a month. Mike said AI tools that find bugs in code mean the flood of updates is not going to slow down, and that more frequent forced reboots are frustrating, especially for overnight jobs. Howard added that Microsoft has started offering hot patching, updates without a reboot, but only on Windows 11 Enterprise for now.
Courts breach: real texts vs scam texts
Mike and Howard said nothing new had come out about the Arizona courts breach: no claim of responsibility, no ransom note and no sign the data is for sale. A text from a short code that tells you to read about the breach on the courts website, without a link, was the real notice. A text from a regular phone number with a link to click is a scam, and you should not interact with it.
The only copy is never safe
After Katie’s call, Mike said irreplaceable photos and videos should never live in just one place, and an external drive is the riskiest place of all. Keep a second copy off-site or in the cloud. Howard pointed out that many people already pay for cloud storage through their Microsoft Office subscription. Mike compared a few dollars a month for off-site backup with a recovery bill of $1,500 or more.
Calls
- Bevy asked why Google Play Services on an Android phone jumps between about 500 MB and 1.5 GB of storage. Mike said Play Services handles background updates and security checks for the phone and its apps, including apps that came with the phone, so the cache grows and clears on its own. A change of about a gigabyte is normal and nothing to worry about.
- Carney asked how to get Microsoft Office, Adobe and AutoCAD without the cost, and how to publish apps he built to the Play Store with PayPal payments. Mike warned that pirated software from shady sites puts your computer at risk, and pointed him to free alternatives like LibreOffice. For PDFs, every browser already opens them, and the show’s Helpful Links page now has a PDF guide with current free picks. The show promised a follow-up with links on app publishing and payments.
- Katie’s external drive, holding irreplaceable family photos and videos, started clicking and would not connect, and the quote for recovery was $900 to $1,600. Mike explained the clicking means the drive cannot finish starting up, so it needs a specialist lab, and said that price is not unreasonable for that kind of failure. He advised not to keep trying to power it up, suggested checking whether homeowners insurance covers data loss, and recommended an automatic off-site backup going forward.